'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎18r] (40/862)

INTRODUCTION
9
Administrative Divisions
After the Ottoman conquest the country was divided into the three
ayalats or vilayets of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, which approximated
very closely to its natural and political divisions. Modern Iraq,
however, has discarded the division by vilayets and consists of
fourteen smaller units called liwas or provinces (fig. 73). The basis of
these divisions is described on p. 394. The capital of the country is
the great city of Baghdad, and there are two other smaller cities of
great regional importance, Mosul, sometimes called the northern
capital, and Basra, the port of Iraq. These and the chief towns are
described in Chapter XII.
Irrigation and Agriculture
Throughout history, in her periods of greatness, the prosperity of
Iraq has been based on agriculture, which has only been possible by
the proper control and use of water. In earliest times channels were
dug for irrigating lands abandoned by the rivers. The necessity for
sovereignty over water probably determined the fusion of independent
city-states into larger groups, dominated by a ruler more powerful
than the rest. As the process grew to empire, elaborate systems of
irrigation came into being, until in Sassanid and Abbasid times most
of the cultivable land was under cultivation. A thousand years of
neglect has left derelict the ancient irrigation systems, and it is only
by great effort that the old prosperity can be restored. The modern
Irrigation Department has already done much: barrages, regulators,
and properly supervised main and branch canals have been built and
dug, but there are problems of land registration and ownership, of
saline tracts, and of drainage that still have to be solved.
Communications
Water is the controlling factor of communications in a naturally
arid country. It is so in Iraq where the two great rivers, their
perennial tributaries, and desert water-holes have always regulated
movement. With the development of modern methods of transport
and speed, water still retains its importance. Modern shallow-draught
paddle-steamers or stern-wheelers navigate the Tigris to Baghdad,
but cannot go up the Euphrates because of the dispersal of its waters.
Here a metre-gauge railway takes its place, but is dependent on the
river for its water. The deserts as a rule form good going for motor
cars, but these, like the camel, have to go from well to well. Even